I have been using my Squeezebox Duet for many years now, but recently it is having problems. The controller will report that it can not connect to my computer, the light on the player is yellow. I am only able to resolve the problem doing a factory reset, during which I have to push the button on the player until it blinks red. Then I can use the system for one or two days until the problem occurs again. I am running version 7.7.3 of the Logitech Media Server. I am quite certain my WiFi router is not the problem, I have just replaced it with an advanced new model and that did not do anything noticable with respect to the network conncection problem.

I hope someone can help me. Performing the factory reset is time consuming and too much to ask from my wife and children, who also like to use the squeezebox.

Regards,
Frans

w3wilkes

2014-11-15, 21:59

Are you saying that you had the same problem before you changed out your router for this new "advanced new model"? Have you made sure you don't have interference from a neighbor on the same channel you're currently on. I find that my duets work best when I have the channel set to a specific channel rather than have the router in automatic mode. Is your LMS also wireless? Wireless LMS is not recommended.

I do have one installation with a wireless LMS. I have the wireless LMS running on a 300Mb 5Ghz channel and a couple of duets. The duets are only capable of running on 2.4Ghz channels so I don't have a issue.

Swiftie

2014-11-16, 00:38

Doing a factory reset is a bit drastic. Does turning it off/on not fix the problem (albeit temporarily)?

I don't think there is a switch, but briefly unplugging the power cable does the job. Turn your amplifier off (or down to zero volume) before doing this as you'd probably get an unpleasant click through your speakers.

Is your duet connected via WiFi or Ethernet (cable)?

Fransie

2014-11-16, 03:18

Are you saying that you had the same problem before you changed out your router for this new "advanced new model"? Have you made sure you don't have interference from a neighbor on the same channel you're currently on. I find that my duets work best when I have the channel set to a specific channel rather than have the router in automatic mode. Is your LMS also wireless? Wireless LMS is not recommended.

I do have one installation with a wireless LMS. I have the wireless LMS running on a 300Mb 5Ghz channel and a couple of duets. The duets are only capable of running on 2.4Ghz channels so I don't have a issue.

W3wilkes, thank you for your reply.

My current router is a D-Link-860L. It replaced a smaller and cheaper router, but the problems with the squeezebox have not changed. The squeezebox has worked well with the other router for quite a while. So I think the problem is caused by either some new sort of network interference, or some part of the Squeezebox system breaking down.

At this moment the Squeezebox is working well. In the router administration application I can see both the controller and the squeezebox. Both are reported to have 100% signal (I suppose that is signal strength) and have a 54 Mbps transfer rate. The router supports 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands, but as you wrote the 5 GHz band is not selectable when setting up a connection.

For the 2.4 GHz band I see that I can manually select one of 13 channels, each with a specific frequency (channel one has 2.412 GHz for example). I have it now set to auto scan, the router will somehow pick the best channel. Should I try out all the 13 channels seperately to see if the problem goes away with one setting? Is there a frequency at which the Squeezebox is known to work best?

Ah wait... I just discovered this seemingly useful guide (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Second_guide_to_wireless_network_problems). It says I could try the extreme channels, 1 or 13 in my case. I will try that to start with.

There is also a 'channel width' setting. I can choose between 20 MHz and 20/40 MHz (auto). The latter is the current setting. Would it be worthwhile to try the other setting?

I will also try to move other devices to the 5GHz band.

With LMS I assume you mean the Logitech Media Server. Well, the host machine for the LMS has a cable connection to the router.

Regards,
Frans

Mnyb

2014-11-16, 03:44

W3ilkes, thank you for your reply.

My current router is a D-Link-860L. It replaced a smaller and cheaper router, but the problems with the squeezebox have not changed. The squeezebox has worked well with the other router for quite a while. So I think the problem is caused by either some new sort of network interference, or some part of the Squeezebox system breaking down.

At this moment the Squeezebox is working well. In the router administration application I can see both the controller and the squeezebox. Both are reported to have 100% signal (I suppose that is signal strength) and have a 54 Mbps transfer rate. The router supports 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands, but as you wrote the 5 GHz band is not selectable when setting up a connection.

For the 2.4 GHz band I see that I can manually select one of 13 channels, each with a specific frequency (channel one has 2.412 GHz for example). I have it now set to auto scan, the router will somehow pick the best channel. Should I try out all the 13 channels seperately to see if the problem goes away with one setting? Is there a frequency at which the Squeezebox is known to work best?

Ah wait... I just discovered this seemingly useful guide (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Second_guide_to_wireless_network_problems). It says I could try the extreme channels, 1 or 13 in my case. I will try that to start with.

There is also a 'channel width' setting. I can choose between 20 MHz and 20/40 MHz (auto). The latter is the current setting. Would it be worthwhile to try the other setting?

I will also try to move other diveces to the 5GHz band.

With LMS I assume you mean the Logitech Media Server. Well, the host machine for the LMS has a cable connection to the router.

Regards,
Frans

try without the auto channel setting use ch1 ,6 or 11 these are non overlapping keep it at 20/40 auto .

Yes squeezeboxes does not support 800.11n but if possible turn of 800.11b (a very old wifi protocoll ) keep n and g working .

toby10

2014-11-16, 03:52

..... and have a 54 Mbps transfer rate.

This is just what the connected device is capable of as a G device, not an actual speed test of current data from/to that device.
Example: Your duet would never use but maybe 1/10th that speed to play lossless music.

Fransie

2014-11-16, 03:56

Doing a factory reset is a bit drastic. Does turning it off/on not fix the problem (albeit temporarily)?

I don't think there is a switch, but briefly unplugging the power cable does the job. Turn your amplifier off (or down to zero volume) before doing this as you'd probably get an unpleasant click through your speakers.

Is your duet connected via WiFi or Ethernet (cable)?

Hello Swiftie,

Thank you for replying.

I have WiFi connections. I tried resetting the player once, but that did not solve the problem. I will try again when the problem occurs again and I will pay more attention to anything that changes afterwards (like the WiFi router status).

Greetings,
Frans

Fransie

2014-11-16, 06:47

try without the auto channel setting use ch1 ,6 or 11 these are non overlapping keep it at 20/40 auto .

Yes squeezeboxes does not support 800.11n but if possible turn of 800.11b (a very old wifi protocoll ) keep n and g working .

Thank you! I will give it a try and report back my findings.

bpa

2014-11-16, 07:53

This thread seems to indicate that protection setting on Wifi (i.e. set router to use WPA2 only and not WPA/WPA2) might affect connections.
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?102444-Duet-a-success-story!

Fransie

2014-11-16, 08:28

This thread seems to indicate that protection setting on Wifi (i.e. set router to use WPA2 only and not WPA/WPA2) might affect connections.
http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?102444-Duet-a-success-story!

Thank you! I have just changed WPA mode to WPA2 only. I hope it helps...

w3wilkes

2014-11-16, 22:46

Back to the auto channel thing... It seems like I've read somewhere in here that some people have had trouble with channels above 11. If you're in a region where you can go above channel 11 on the router and it's set to "auto" you could have trouble if the router selected channels above 11. In my case I don't have channels above 11, I am set for the "fat" 40Mhz wide channels (up to 300Mbits on capable devices of which squeeze is not one) and have no trouble with either my duet controllers or receivers. I do use a specific set channel and WPA2 security.

Fransie

2014-11-17, 13:29

Well, changing to channel 1 and setting WPA mode to 'WPA2 only' apparently did not solve the problem, because the network problem just occured again. On the plus side, it seems that I may have been too hasty in thinking that resetting the player does not help. I paid closer attention now and I noticed that the yellow light returns after putting power back on, but after waiting a bit the light turns to red and then disappears, and I can play music without having to go through a factory reset. So thanks to Swiftie for improving the situation in that respect!

I have now changed the channel to 11 (avoiding the possibly risky channel 13). Let's see what that will do...

Greetings,
Frans

bpa

2014-11-17, 14:47

Are you using DHCP ? Does the problem occur when DHCP lease expires ?

Mnyb

2014-11-17, 23:38

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SBR_front_button_and_LED

No sign of green ligth ? re bpa idea about dhcp .

Fransie

2014-11-18, 00:41

Are you using DHCP ? Does the problem occur when DHCP lease expires ?

I just checked.. DHCP lease time is set to 10080 minutes, which is 7 days. My problem occurs more frequent. Also, I see that the IP addresses of the player and the controller have not changed after the last time the problem occured. So it's probably not a DHCP problem. But thanks for the suggestion!

Fransie

2014-11-18, 00:44

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SBR_front_button_and_LED

No sign of green ligth ? re bpa idea about dhcp .

I do not keep my eyes on the light continuously, but I do not recall it ever having been green.

bpa

2014-11-18, 02:11

I'm a believer in shutting down options that the SBR will not use just in case some other device on network might activate the choice. If get a working setup you can always revert.

When setting security to WPA 2, make sure cypher is set to AES only (TKIP is WPA)
Set Channel width to 20Mhz only - no Auto or 20/40Mhz.

What is the Wireless Signal strength of the SBR as reported by LMS ? Does it vary ?

Fransie

2014-11-20, 02:01

I'm a believer in shutting down options that the SBR will not use just in case some other device on network might activate the choice. If get a working setup you can always revert.

When setting security to WPA 2, make sure cypher is set to AES only (TKIP is WPA)
Set Channel width to 20Mhz only - no Auto or 20/40Mhz.

What is the Wireless Signal strength of the SBR as reported by LMS ? Does it vary ?

My 'box just failed again on channel 11. But I did notice that the WPA 2 setting that I had done before had not caught on. So I changed it again, and I set the cypher explicitely to AES. I also set the channel width to 20MHz. I kept the channel on 11, because I want to change one setting at a time from now on.

The signal stength at the moment is reported to be 92%. It does vary a bit, I have seen values of 89% and 90% too. I will keep an eye on those readings.

Mnyb

2014-11-20, 06:15

Progress then .

For kicks other things not to do .

Do not turn of SSID broadcast . ( it does not provide any extra security)

Dont use Mac adress Filtering .(can easilly be spoofed anyway)*

Dont limit the amount of devices than can conect to the wifi .*

If anything on the network use static network adresses make sure that the DHCP adress range does not include any of these adresses .

*) You tend to forget that you ever used these settings the only one suffering is you .

Also what is the base adress of your router 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 is this also your DHCP it is in almost any home network . There is a bug in bugzilla about recievers dhacp not working with configurations other than the bog standard setup that most home networks use .

If al else fails you can always use static network settings for your squeezebox and not rely on dhcp . ( this is not the same as reserve ip adresses on the router )

philippe_44

2014-12-05, 13:57

I don't know is this is the case for all receivers, but after having a lots of issues with mine (and it was working fine for days, then a disaster for a day or two and so on) and having tried all sort of permutation and combination of routers, WiFi parameters, TCP/IP parameters, down to doing WiFi RF analysis, I opened the boxes and discovered with horror that the 2 antennas where "glued" on the main PCB, and one was on the miniPCI connector, which is obviously radiating a lot of digital noise. I put these 2 antennas back to where they should be, on the main case, and I've never had any problem for the last 18 month. Problem with interferences like the ones generated by this silly antenna position is that they can change depending on some totally untrackable behavior of your system due to a few parameter changes - the digital noise pattern changes and you're stuck